The Assault on Liberty continues: Thousands more motorists will lose their licences under plans to give police the power to issue penalty points for careless driving without evidence being heard in court. … Unlike existing fixed-penalty offences, such as speeding and using a hand-held mobile phone at the wheel, the […]
Read MorePost Tagged with: "Policing"
Modern Liberty
Via Spy chief: We risk a police state – Telegraph: Dame Stella [Rimington, ex-head of MI5,] accused ministers of interfering with people’s privacy and playing straight into the hands of terrorists. “Since I have retired I feel more at liberty to be against certain decisions of the Government, especially the […]
Read MoreRecommended reading: “Freedom for Public Services”
The latest publication from the Centre for Policy Studies arrived today: “Freedom for Public Services” by William Mason and Jonathan McMahon. Better services at lower cost, and more fulfilling jobs for public servants, are quite possible. As ever, this CPS report is intelligent, brief, clear and insightful. The sheer scale […]
Read MoreDe Menezes case – radical reform of coroner system required
In the Times, further light is thrown on the De Menezes inquest by Tom Luce, who chaired the Fundamental Review of Coroners and Death Certification in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (2001-03): The prohibition in Rule 42 of the Coroners’ Rules on framing any verdict “in such a way as […]
Read MoreJean Charles de Menezes inquest: Jury reaches open verdict
From The Telegraph, the jury return an open verdict on the killing of De Menezes: After a three-month hearing costing an estimated £6 million, jurors rejected a verdict that the innocent Brazilian had been killed lawfully by police. They returned an ambigious, open verdict – the only other option they […]
Read MoreWhy the Damian Green affair vacillates between tragedy and farce: the law is a mess
A key problem underlying the Green affair may be that no one really knows what powers the police have of entry and seizure, or ought to have, in Parliament or anywhere else. The CPS paper “Crossing the Threshold” is rather long, but it precisely identifies this problem and proposes a […]
Read MoreDavid Cameron on the Queen’s speech
A warrant should certainly be necessary to search an MP’s office, and a person’s home too.
Read MoreThe police are being handcuffed by rules | Magnus Linklater
From The Times: Fifty years ago, in a landmark article for The New Yorker, the American writer Mary McCarthy wrote: “Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern despotism.” There is no great evidence to suggest that things have improved since then. Instead, like all despots, it has […]
Read MoreYard at war over arrest of Tory MP – Times Online
As the political storm grew, MPs and civil liberties groups questioned the role of Sir Paul Stephenson, who took temporary charge of the Metropolitan police when Sir Ian Blair left office last week. Stephenson was regarded as the favourite to succeed Blair, but one senior police officer described him yesterday […]
Read MoreThree police officers beat up handcuffed Iraq war veteran
Naturally, the Mirror uses provocative language in this story, but the video shows behaviour which is utterly shameful. I hope the law does what is necessary to improve our trust in the police. read more | digg story
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